Hey all,
My girlfriend just decided to try keeping a tank for the first time, so I'm helping her plan. It's been a long time since I did the whole beginner tank thing, so I thought I'd check in here for some advice. Let me tell you all a little about the setup and then I'll ask a few questions. I'm trying to keep things as simple as possible so I don't scare her away from the hobby. I'd like to keep it cheap and simple but don't mind paying a little more for convenience or quality. Our tap water is pretty hard, somewhere around 8 ish if I remember correctly, we aren't interested in messing with the chemistry at all this time. I think she would be willing to fertilize a little bit, but I want to do everything possible to avoid algae problems. I don't need fantastic plant growth or anything.
The tank will probably be:
- standard 10 gallon tank, with hob filter, commercial hood, simple heater (maybe fixed temp?)
- fancy guppies, cherry shrimp
- basic plants like jungle val, java moss, maybe java fern or anubias
Most of my tanks have been largely custom and generally were stocked with fish preferring soft acidic water, so I'm looking for advice on harder water stocking options and equipment recommendations. I don't think we want to do too much diy this time around.
- Is there any consensus on which hob filters tend to be best? I used to prefer aquaclear because they were pretty simple and seemed to have a decent media capacity for their size, but that was a while ago. I definitely don't want anything that requires me to buy special filter cartridges or any of that bs. I usually just get something simple, oversize it a bit, and then fill most of the capacity with biological media.
- Same for the hood, general recommendations? I remember it was really hard to find a decently priced hood, they always seemed unreasonably expensive to me. For growing simple plants, can I just get a cheap hood and slap in a better bulb? Maybe just like a 6700k fluorescent? Again it's been a little while since I looked at what was best for fluorescent.
- I'd like to find a good bottom dweller for the tank. Normally I'd pick otos or cories, but I think otos are too fragile and neither is really compatible with the hard water. If there are any cories that can do alright in this water I'd love to hear about them. They'd be perfect if not for the water. I'm not interested in plecos. Are h=there maybe any loaches that would be ok?
I'm still open to all suggestions at this stage, Thanks for all the advice!
My girlfriend just decided to try keeping a tank for the first time, so I'm helping her plan. It's been a long time since I did the whole beginner tank thing, so I thought I'd check in here for some advice. Let me tell you all a little about the setup and then I'll ask a few questions. I'm trying to keep things as simple as possible so I don't scare her away from the hobby. I'd like to keep it cheap and simple but don't mind paying a little more for convenience or quality. Our tap water is pretty hard, somewhere around 8 ish if I remember correctly, we aren't interested in messing with the chemistry at all this time. I think she would be willing to fertilize a little bit, but I want to do everything possible to avoid algae problems. I don't need fantastic plant growth or anything.
The tank will probably be:
- standard 10 gallon tank, with hob filter, commercial hood, simple heater (maybe fixed temp?)
- fancy guppies, cherry shrimp
- basic plants like jungle val, java moss, maybe java fern or anubias
Most of my tanks have been largely custom and generally were stocked with fish preferring soft acidic water, so I'm looking for advice on harder water stocking options and equipment recommendations. I don't think we want to do too much diy this time around.
- Is there any consensus on which hob filters tend to be best? I used to prefer aquaclear because they were pretty simple and seemed to have a decent media capacity for their size, but that was a while ago. I definitely don't want anything that requires me to buy special filter cartridges or any of that bs. I usually just get something simple, oversize it a bit, and then fill most of the capacity with biological media.
- Same for the hood, general recommendations? I remember it was really hard to find a decently priced hood, they always seemed unreasonably expensive to me. For growing simple plants, can I just get a cheap hood and slap in a better bulb? Maybe just like a 6700k fluorescent? Again it's been a little while since I looked at what was best for fluorescent.
- I'd like to find a good bottom dweller for the tank. Normally I'd pick otos or cories, but I think otos are too fragile and neither is really compatible with the hard water. If there are any cories that can do alright in this water I'd love to hear about them. They'd be perfect if not for the water. I'm not interested in plecos. Are h=there maybe any loaches that would be ok?
I'm still open to all suggestions at this stage, Thanks for all the advice!